An Intelligent Person's Guide to History

John Vincent

An Intelligent Person's Guide to History is more a collection of
essays than an integrated guide, with largely independent chapters on a
scattered range of topics. The selection of topics is Anglo-centric and
the approach idiosyncratic, reflecting Vincent's personal foibles and his
background as a historian of 19th century British diplomacy and politics.

The focus moves between key historians and schools of history, with
chapters "Historical Imagination: Why Collingwood Matters", "The
Whig Interpretation of History: Why Butterfield Matters", "History
as Structure: Why Napier Matters", "Theories about the Past" (on Marx,
Weber and Toynbee), "The Evolution of Historical Study: Bede to Acton"
(covering only Britain), "Economic History", and "Modern Schools of
History" (on social history and the Annales movement). Other topics
covered include morality, causality, bias, and the importance of "kings
and battles".

Vincent is a contrarian: the biographical sketch on the dust-jacket
trumpets his "uncompromising and unorthodox views" and "frequent
vilification in the media", while a postscript describes Oxford
University Press' rejection of the book, apparently for lack of political
correctness. And the presentation often seems designed to shock: Marx is
"an awesomely justice-loving individual from a vanished individualist
world", an "essentially libertarian rebel and individualist", while
"dwelling on the Jewish holocaust exaggerates the goodness of mankind".

Much of what Vincent writes consists of aphorisms or throwaway lines
that don't withstand deeper consideration, turning out to be banal or
just plain wrong. He argues that history is not archaeology because
archaeology is "a method and not a body of knowledge". He comes up with
"five big reasons" why history "does not resemble natural science",
not one of which does anything at all to distinguish history from
paleontology. Arguments that history is "not just about kings and
battles" are turned into strawmen, while Vincent suggests that the
prevalence of mass deaths this century "does not leave much space for the
non-political 'everyday life'".

Though muddled in many places and frustrating in others, An Intelligent
Person's Guide to History is easy to read, entertaining, and provoking.
I can't, however, recommend it to a generic "intelligent person", since
those without a background in thinking about history are likely to find
it misleading.

Note: the original version of this review contained a quote taken out
of context, which reversed the meaning of a passage which was actually
advocacy for Asian history.